When two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking

"When two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking" is a spelling rule used when teaching English-speaking children that says that when there are two vowels in a word the first one has the so-called "long" sound of the vowel (or alphabet name), and the second one is not pronounced.

For example, in train the a has the so-called “long a” sound and i does not sound. The same happens for each, die, goat, and rescue.

Unfortunately, this rule is false 60% of the time. Counterexamples: pause, head, chief, out, biscuit.

The first one does the talking

• "ai" /eɪ/: Adelaide, afraid, aid, aim, available, brain, campaign, chain, claim, complain, contain, daily, detail, entertain, explain, fail, faith, gain, hail, Haiti, jail, mail, main, Maine, maintain, paid, pain, paint, rail, rain, raise, remain, retail, snail, Spain, stain, straight, train, trait, wait

Exception: said

• "ee" /iː/: fee - keep - sleep
• "oa" /əʊ/: approach, boat, coach, coal, coat, coast, float, foam, goal, goat, load, loan, oats, road, roast, throat, toast

• "oe" /əʊ/: toe

Exceptions: shoe - does - canoe

• "ue" /(j)uː/: blue - clue - continue - due - value

Mixed results

• "ea"
  • /iː/: beach - bead - beat - bleach - breathe - cheat - clean - cream - creature - deal - dream - each - easy - eat - feature - heal - heat - increase - jeans - lead (verb) - leader - leaf - lean - leave - meal - mean - meat - pea - peach - peak - please - reach - read - repeat - reason - reveal - scream - sea - seal - seat - steal - steam - stream - teach - team - treat - weak

• • /e/: ahead - already - bread - breakfast - breast - breath - cleanse - dead - deaf - dealt - death - dread - dreadful - feather - head - header - health - heather - heavy - instead - jealous - lead (metal) - leapt - leather - meadow - meant - measure - pheasant - pleasant - pleasure - read (past tense and past participle) - ready - spread - steady - sweat - thread - threat - threaten - treachery - tread - treadmill - treasure - wealth - weapon - weather

• • /eɪ/: break - great - steak
• "ei"

/iː/: ceiling - conceive - receipt

/eɪ/: eight - neighbour - weigh

• "eo"

/iː/: people

/e/: leopard

Both vowels do the talking: video - theory

• "ie"

/aɪ/: lies - fried

/iː/: chief - field

• "ui"

/(j)uː/: bruise - fruit - suite

/ɪ/: biscuit - circuit

/uːɪ/: altruism - fluid - ruin - suicide

/wɪ/: anguish - liquid - penguin - quick

The rule doesn't work

• "au" /ɔː/: cause - author
• "oo"

/uː/ school - goose

/ʊ/: foot - good

• "ou" /aʊ/: about - mouth

Exceptions: soup - through; could - should - would; country - double

Rule works for soul, but it is better to teach "ou" as a phonogram, and therefore soul is an exception.

Both vowels do the talking

With a little imagination, instead of exceptions the following patterns are examples of rules for diphthongs.

• "ew" /(j)uː/: few - flew - new
• "oi" /ɔɪ/: choice